I’ve only read two of these: the winner, The Line of Beauty, and Cloud Atlas. And I have to say that,
hands down, no contest, Cloud Atlas
was the better of the two.

Why? Hollinghurst’s book is good, as I wrotein my review. But it’s a book about one era, and its limited set of problems: Thatcher’s
England, and class and sexuality therein. It’s an interesting topic, and Hollinghurst’s
take on it is worthy.

But Cloud
Atlas is simply revolutionary, in both the literal and figurative senses. Figuratively
first, its structure and plot are completely original: five stories are cut off
halfway through, then found by the next character. That is, the first half of
Adam’s journal in Part 1 is found by composer Robert in part 2. Luisa finds
half of Robert’s letters in part 3, and so on, until the crux of the novel,
part 6. Then part 5 concludes, part 4, part 3, all the way back down to one. It’s
a risky but thoroughly virtuoso performance.

Second, its message is literally revolutionary.
Each section is the story of an underdog, and the group he or she represents,
rising up to claim his or her due from the ruling class. We have a slave sailor
who frees himself, a reporter trying to blow the whistle on corrupt power plant
owners, a clone ascending above her virtual servitude, and so on.

It’s a masterful, compelling, creative
book, and Cloud Atlas should have won
the prize.

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

So now that I'm done with the Booker prize reading project, what am I up to next? Here is a picture of my to-read shelf, which has been gradually filling up over the past year. Right now I'm pulling out the shortest books so that I can read as many books as possible before the end of the year. My first book club read of the year will be Sisters in Law, about Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Best Plot: The Luminaries. Staggeringly complex plot that ties together nearly
20 main characters. Runner-up: Amsterdam, an incredibly satisfying tale
of comeuppance.

Best Historical Novel: Sacred Hunger. A must-read for anyone
interested in the impact of the slave trade on people of all colors. Runner-up: Wolf Halland its sequel Bring Up the Bodies, that place you in the cunning mind of Thomas Cromwell.

Monday, December 24, 2018

Anna Burns’ Milkman, the 2018 winner of the Man Booker prize, hooked me at
first with its language: stilted and formal, hinting at a post-apocalyptic near
future reminiscent of 1984, where
everyone checks for bugs in their phones and is not surprised to be
photographed while jogging in the park. Most characters are stripped of names and
are known only by epithets, such as “the man who didn't love anybody” or “Somebody
McSomebody” or “maybe-boyfriend.”

Middle sister, our nameless narrator, is
being approached by the milkman. But he’s not really a milkman, he’s a renouncer
of the state, and quite high up in the paramilitary pecking order. Anna Burns’
great achievement is recreating the psychological tension of the unwanted
attention that without words or violence still constitutes harassment. See the
progression in this string of quotes I highlighted from early in the book to
almost the end:

“I couldn’t be rude because he wasn’t
being rude … Why was he presuming I didn’t mind him beside me when I did mind
him beside me? ... I did not know intuition and repugnance counted, did not
know I had a right not to like, not to have to put up with, anybody and
everybody coming near … So shiny was bad, and ‘too sad’ was bad, and ‘too joyous’
was bad, which meant you had to go around not being anything … I came to
understand how much I’d been closed down, how much I’d been thwarted into a
carefully constructed nothingness by that man.”

The sad parallel that Burns draws is between
the one-on-one intimidation of a woman by a man, and the similar constant
harrying of a terrorist state (presumably Ireland in the 1970s), in which the
citizens become used to unspoken rules, constant surveillance, and an ever-present
threat of violence.

The comparison, and its conveyance through
nameless characters in absurd situations, is brilliant. Nonetheless, the plot
started to lag about halfway through, and I had to push through to the end.

Now I have read every single Man Booker
prize winner since its inception fifty years ago in 1968. My future goal is to read
the winner every year, and perhaps the shortlisted books as well. Next post: my
personal Booker favorites.

Friday, December 21, 2018

I have loved the writing of George
Saunders ever since I was introduced to him by a former colleague, who used his
story “The Falls” in a high-school American lit class. Each of his short
stories is unique and thought-provoking, sort of a hybrid of Raymond Carver’s bluntness
and David Foster Wallace’s intricacy.

Lincoln in the Bardo is one of the most
original novels I have ever read. It is mostly told in two alternating forms:
historical narrative composed of an accretion of related quotations from
presumably historical sources, and narrative spoken by ghosts in a graveyard.

Here’s the premise: During the early years
of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, one of the Lincolns’ sons,
Willie, got sick and died. He is taken to a Washington, D.C., cemetery for interment.
There we meet several dead-but-not-departed, who linger between this world and
the next.

The novel focuses on the ghosts’ attempts
to help Willie move on the next world, as awful things happen to child spirits
who linger. The result is a fascinating peek into the Great Emancipator’s mind.

It’s a quick and easy read, shorter than
your typical 343-page book, because of the space between the quotations, reminiscent
of the spaces between graves in a graveyard.

And with that, I have finished the Booker
Project! I still have ten days left in 2018, so look for my review of this year’s
winner, Milkman, as well as my
personal favorites recap before year’s end.